


Flesh and Bone

by YumKiwiDelicious



Series: Battle Born [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Foggy helps unknowingly, M/M, Matt has issues, Pre-Daredevil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 15:34:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3942109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumKiwiDelicious/pseuds/YumKiwiDelicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“He faces forward, trading his blindness for the glow of love.”</p>
<p>Hearing everything all the time had used to be too much to handle, but there's one sound that drowns all others out for Matt. Even the ones inside his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flesh and Bone

There had not truly been such a thing as 'quiet' in Matt Murdock's life since he lost his site. Even in the lonely hour of midnight when New York city laid wide awake, noises from all over Hell's Kitchen would slither through the cracks in his window, whispering into his ears like a disease and keeping him up long after the sun had risen. It had been deafening in the beginning, the intensity of it all, and he had gone through life white knuckled in the moments when the onslaught left him staggering with exhaustion. He had known he needed to adjust, but he wasn't sure how for a long time. It appeared natural selection had picked him out to be the dark horse running blind.

Once his father was gone and Stick had come, it had gotten easier. Nothing about the loss of the only parent he had ever known had been easy particularly, but when the older man came, he taught Matt to filter through the chaos, picking out sounds and smells that were important, turning the rest into a nearly silent background hum.

Stick had been a driving force in and of himself, constantly pressing and prodding at Matt, trying to get him to hit back like a raging bull. “What're you afraid of? What are you made of, kid? Flesh and bone? Who controls that?”

In those few months he slept better than he had in years. Then the old man was gone and he appeared at breakfast red-eyed and sleep deprived again. But for those few months he had been anointed in the blood of his own abused knuckles and had taken the reins of his life back. It'd taken twice as long to regain control afterwards; to regain his own special sense of 'quiet'. It had been trying, but Matt knew he had been cut from the cloth of a robe that bore the name “Battlin' Jack Murdock” and he refused to shame the crimson fabric.

Now years later, he could trick himself into believing that the old boxer training gym was quiet. But for his fists hitting the bag, and the resounding grunts that followed, there was no especially loud noises that permeated the air, wrecking the stillness. He was like a contender, listening for the bell as unseen light danced across his face. He had to keep punching the bag, he had to. If he stopped he would hear the skittering of a particularly large rat beneath the floorboards and the intimate coo of two pigeons up on the roof. He would hear a man on the street corner outside tapping agitatedly at his phone screen and a heavily perfumed woman's Jimmy Choos clacking over the asphalt.

He had to keep punching the bag or else he would hear the girl crying in her room again. Even far from his block and his apartment he could hear her, forever tuned in to her pained gasps and frightened whimpers. If he stopped punching the bag he would be forced to listen to her shuffle around her home in discomfort, body too stiff and achy to move or even sit comfortably. He would smell her urinate on her bed sheets for the fifth time that week and then he would hear as she stripped the bed, bones screaming in protest.

He had to keep hitting the bag so his migraine from listening to her small heart stutter and stop with fear wouldn't come back. So that he wouldn't have to create a picture of her in his mind, staring out her window, as was her habit, scouting the crowd for a face of compassion or a fairy-tale end to her horror story of a life.

He had to keep hitting the bag so he wouldn't hear when her father came home. So he wouldn't hear what he was doing to her in her room alone. So he wouldn't hear and imagine going there himself and grabbing the man and hitting him over and over and over and over.  
  
 _Thump-thump._

It wasn't her heartbeat he heard as he landed what would have been a staggering blow on the bag, a seam popping like a confetti gun. The old piece of equipment swung to and fro, the creak of the chain like amplified nails on a chalkboard. He was grateful for it in many ways as it very nearly drowned out the sound of his own heavy panting.

_Thump-thump._

It wasn't the little girl's heartbeat. Her heartbeat was one he had begun to shy away from even in all his concerned attentiveness. He loved and hated to hear it. Loved because it meant she was still alive. Hated because it was always jacked up with terror. And it meant that she was still alive. In that house. With that man.

_Thump-thump_

He pulled himself from his demons to focus in on the approaching heart, one that he was familiar with and consistently searching out and leaning towards. Upbeat. Happy. Muffled under an especially huggable layer of fat, but not at all weighed down or unhealthy. Matt imagined the absolute focus he placed on Foggy's heartbeat made it sound similar to what a fetus must hear in the womb, growing just below the steady thrum of its mother's heart. That's how much he amplified it in his own mind.

_Thump-thump._

The young man was approaching, messenger bag thrown over his soldier and filled with doodles and a doggie bag from Matt's favorite bakery clutched in his dominant hand. Matt smiled into the eternal darkness, anticipating the bavarian cream filled donuts coming his way. He steadied the bag again, squaring his shoulders.

_Thump-thump._

Foggy's heartbeat drowned out all other noises, turning them into a nearly silent background hum. As his best friend drew closer, just a bit over a block away now, Matt's heart slowed and steadied to match Foggy's.

_Thump-thump. Thump-thump._

He swung on the bag again, finally able to think clearly in the quiet that resonated outside of Foggy's heartbeat. He thought of the little girl and her father, not with apprehension or despair, but with calculation. With a free mind he could see what he had to do. Because while calling Child Protective Services had proven futile, there was more than one way to skin a cat. He swung on the bag again, leaving his scowl (that had been steadily growing) behind for a calmer face set.

_Thump-thump. Thump-thump._

He knew what he had to do now. Foggy's heartbeat, strong and steady as it was had let him hear exactly what he needed to hear. It beat on, raging against time and debt and any other number of worries his old roommate might have and continued to do the right thing without fail. Keeping Foggy alive for Matt. For the fist sized muscle there was no surrender because there was no retreat. That's how Matt knew he had to be about the father. He would rage on, not retreating from what he knew was the right thing to do.

By the time Foggy made it to the old gym, smile practically splitting his face as he thought about what a surprise the donuts would be, Matt had traded in his blind, blank gaze for a glow of love that he showered on his law partner, or at least in his general direction. Foggy approached, not noticing the tear in the side of the bag that was slowly spilling sand, loud as a waterfall to Matt's ears. He held up and shook his sack of delicious treats as if Matt could actually see it.

“Dude, they had your favorite!”

The quiet was so nice.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've gone through life white-knuckled  
> In the moments that left me behind  
> Refusing to heed the yield  
> I penetrate the force fields in the blind  
> They say I'll adjust  
> God knows I must  
> But I'm not sure how  
> This natural selection picked me out to be  
> A dark horse running in a fantasy
> 
> Flesh and bone  
> And I'm running out of time,  
> Flesh and bone
> 
> Somewhere outside that finish line  
> I square up and break through the chains  
> And I hit like a raging bull  
> Anointed by the blood, I take the reins  
> Cut from the cloth, of a flag that  
> Bears the name of "Battle Born"  
> They'll call me the contender  
> They'll listen for the bell  
> With my face flashing crimson from the fires of hell
> 
> What are you afraid of?  
> And what are you made of?  
> Flesh and bone  
> And I'm running out of time,  
> Flesh and bone  
> And what are you made of?  
> Flesh and bone  
> Man, I'm turning on a dime,  
> Flesh and bone
> 
> This could decay  
> Like the valley below  
> Defenses are down  
> The stakes are high  
> (Scouting the crowd for a face of compassion)  
> The fairytale end  
> (To face off the journey that fathers no more)  
> The staggering blow  
> (You'll find the truth in the roots of desire)  
> You lead with your chin  
> (Thinkin' with your corners, just a compass and the sun)  
> This could be real  
> (Thinkin' with your corners, just a)  
> Simple
> 
> And what are you made of?  
> Flesh and bone  
> And I'm running out of time  
> Flesh and bone  
> What are you made of?
> 
> He faces forward,  
> Trading in his blindness for the glow of love,  
> And time is raging, may it rage in vain,  
> And you always had it, but you never knew,  
> So boots and saddles, get on your feet,  
> There's no surrender, 'cause there's no retreat,  
> The bells are sobbing, in this monster land,  
> We are the descendants of giant men.


End file.
